Comments

Having seen the video of the 7 yo boy being searched, I feel fortunate I was not there. The TSA would have found themselves in need of some replacements, and I’d have spent the weekend in jail. Age has not entirely calmed my temper, particularly involving stupidity and abuse of children.

Strange that on the other side (incoming customs check) they do it the right way: Screen people based on objective criteria such as background, behavior, travel history, and country of origin.

“Evidence-based screening” will be implemented when the TSA is folded into Obamacare, efficiently combining security AND medical screening as will be recommended by the US Preventative Screening Task Force (e.g., tweaking the scanner might yield mammograms for women 50-75).

I am surprised the medical community is not more upset by this turn of events. We have untrained technicians operating essentially x-ray machines where by definition the levels of radiation must be high enough to get the desired definition of the genital area. The issue of equipment failure and the cumulative effect of radiation as medical issues have yet to be resolved.

We then have the issue of contact with bladder control and feminine hygiene products. Tied to this are the psychological issues of dealing with answering questions concerning these products. This morning’s paper highlighted a seven year old boy having his shirt ripped off by a frustrated father trying to comply with a TSA screener’s request.

When we arrived in Naples, Fl on Sunday we were greeted by the picture of an adult male with a large stomach holding his shirt under his chin while being examined by a TSA screener.

What I find troubling is that the bombing plots are originating in other countries, not in the US, and are being stopped through intelligence. EL AL has not lost a plane and they have taken a pass on the scanners.

Vacationing in Florida I pulled up the Toronto Sun site and the lead story was of a 15 year old girl being molested in public while flying from a rural Canadian airport. The mother asked if she could be screened in her daughter’s place, knowing how this would make the daughter feel. The screener refused, and proceeds to molest this child in full public view.

Just as troubling was learning that in Amsterdam they use a scanner with a human outline and a yellow box showing possible contraband and this system was offered to the TSA but they refused. The most commonly found item is a cell phone.

A number of articles have highlighted the loss of rights and the claims of government that the common good outweighs those rights. We have medical leadership promoting the practice of medicine for the good of the collective, not the individual. Will we soon see a hardening of the public to push aside those who are less fortunate, or suffer from chronic health issues?

What happens when this grand experiment produces health issues of its own?

Obama did not invent this s**t but I imagine he now sees the value in TSA passenger screening as a way of ritually humiliating Americans of all walks of life and conditioning us to accept gummint authoritah over our very lives and bodies.